Perfect timing for my intro class!

I was just thinking about the marionettes and related set for "The Lonely Goatherd" scene in The Sound of Music (1965).

I wonder how much it would cost to have that entire set, marionettes and all. A bit of a fortune, I imagine.

Gas discharge tubes

Al Tobias of UVA in our demo session!

@msaphysics.bsky.social is here!

These three Sections of @AAPT:
- csaapt.org
- www.aaptseps.org
- njaapt.org

Today I am at The University of Delaware for a joint meeting of 3 different sections of the American Association of Physics Teachers @aapthq.bsky.social.

Newark DE is pretty much at the mutual borders of the Chesapeake Section, the Southeast Pennsylvania Section, and the the New Jersey Section.

Our best boy was a Chihuahua mix who was adopted from the Henrico Humane Society in Henrico County, Virginia. In this photo, he is at Gayton Library, and he is happy and very alert, possibly because we are going to check out some righteous nonfiction. He has been with us since the second Obama administration, so he has seen some stuff.

Today our family said goodbye someone very dear to us, so obviously that has been difficult. It highlights how precious our time is with one another.

He was absolutely the best boy.

Me, reading the social media:
"Someone Has to Be Happy."

lmao no, nobody has to be happy. Please let Chozik, Bezos, and the rest of the world know that nobody **has to** be happy.

I do like IPAs, but there’s no reason for them to represent more than a quarter of the taps in any establishment.

a bald man wearing headphones is looking at the camera in a dark room . Alt: Lobot, first his eyes are closed, and then they pop open (The Empire Strikes Back, 1980)

My dog when I open a Ziploc bag, two rooms away:

"The Dark Side of the Moon" (1973)
42:50

Well, my reach is limited. So maybe not on a per-person level but in aggregate, yes.

I added basically the same amount to US economic growth last year but I was so many orders of magnitude less destructive and insufferable. So I've got that going for me.

What a great thing to do on such a beautiful day!

Gotta leave now and go to the cool social media site, LinkedIn.

Astrophysics influencer uses social media to break science stereotypes

You may think of lab coats and pocket protectors or wrinkled plaid shirts when you hear the word "scientist." But @caltech.edu astronomy postdoc and influencer Clarissa Do Ó shows that a physicist can look like anyone. In her case, that means lots of pink. #whatcanphysicistsdo #astronomy

One of the students decided to google the conversion to newtons (she had not realized it was included in the question I asked) and as she typed "convert 6,000 pounds", google suggested "to US dollars".

I was immensely entertained!

https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/02/artemis-ii-flight-day-2-orion-completes-tli-burn-crew-begins-journey-to-the-moon/ On Thursday, 4/2/26, NASA’s Orion spacecraft “fired its main engine for five minutes and 50 seconds beginning at 7:49 p.m. EDT, to successfully complete the translunar injection (TLI) burn, sending the crew in Orion out of Earth orbit and on a trajectory toward the Moon. Orion’s main engine provides up to 6,000 pounds of thrust... At the time of the burn, Orion’s mass was 58,000 pounds and burned approximately 1,000 pounds of fuel during the firing.” Calculate “u”, the engine exhaust speed. Use that to find Δv for Orion. Note: 1 pound-force = 4.45 newtons,

This is today's question #4 for my calculus-based introductory physics class at JMU Physics. This is just such perfect timing to have this going on right as we are talking about momentum and the rocket equation. Student enthusiasm for this assignment was unusually high.

1) I love this, thank you for sharing this.

2) I hate that they are using pounds as the unit for both force and mass.

It did in fact, barely survive into April

bam pondi

Former MLB pitcher Kyle Crockett

Kyle Crockett enters the chat!

I learned this by reading Kerouac.

#Literature

idk but it HAD to be something from @sterlace, account was one hit after the other.

a man in a plaid shirt is sitting in a chair with his eyes closed while a woman holds his head . Alt: Nathan Fillion

I think he looks like Nathan Fillion.

I told my students that I had contacted @esa.int and arranged to have the #Artemis II launch this week precisely because our intro physics class is studying conservation of momentum, and Friday's class is the Rocket Equation.

They are humoring me because they are pretty excited about the physics.

Donald Sutherland as "Oddball" in the movie "Kelly's Heroes" (1970)

My new persona for faculty meetings:

Let's see if I've got this:

- Bad Boys
- I Am Legend (or possibly Hitch)
- Enemy of the State
- ??
- Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

I'm close.

W L pct Miami Marlins 1 1 1.000 New York Mets 1 1 1.000 Washington Nationals 1 1 1.000 Atlanta Braves 1 1 1.000 Philadelphia Phillies 1 1 1.000

Baseball question: What... what's the order here? All 5 teams in the NL East are 1-0 to start the season, but I am curious how MLB.com chose to order them. It's not chronological, not alphabetical, not by color. Is it height?